


the gold has rusted

by wisteria (orphan_account)



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-05
Updated: 2012-08-05
Packaged: 2017-11-11 11:21:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/477988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/wisteria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love is only a weapon if you work at it, if you manipulate it in your fingers, if you bend and mold it until it resembles love but deep down is nothing like it at all. The only other way love is useful is if someone else loves you and you can bend their love, you can make it stronger, you can lead them on; that’s what he’s done with Thor, ever since he realized he loved Thor, however long ago that was, however many pages ago that was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the gold has rusted

**Author's Note:**

> Post-canon, so slight movie spoilers...? If anyone hasn't seen it yet;;; 
> 
> I'm still just trying to get a feel for how I want to write Thorki.

When Loki’s mouth was sealed, his lips slicked in a smile that no one would see; it ebbed on the edge of his muzzle like water slips through the crevices of ice. He put up nary a struggle when it was clipped into place. He simply flashed Thor a look that was so far from innocence, he flashed Thor a look where the true red of his eyes would be evident behind the green-since-flashed-blue.

But Thor’s lips stayed pressed together, in a tight line, glued there by anger.

Loki knew the anger would be in Thor for long; it simply couldn’t be, as Thor didn’t have it in him.

It nearly—nearly—hurt Loki to think of Thor never forgiving him; but that was much too close to caring what Thor thinks, Loki reminded himself, so he cut that from his mind. Forgiveness, to Loki, is weak, just like love.

Love is only a weapon if you work at it, if you manipulate it in your fingers, if you bend and mold it until it resembles love but deep down is nothing like it at all. The only other way love is useful is if someone else loves you and you can bend their love, you can make it stronger, you can lead them on; that’s what he’s done with Thor, ever since he realized he loved Thor, however long ago that was, however many pages ago that was.

Yet, though Loki hates such things, though he hates love and forgiveness, he yearns for them. He wishes to have them for manipulation, and one would say, perhaps, because he wants to be loved and cared for; but that is a lie, because Loki doesn’t want anything anymore.

His insides have been so chortled and twisted and mangled, like the fabric of the universe after a time-traveler blows through; he does not know what to feel anymore when someone shows kindness, because kindness always has motive. Does he dare smile back—will they believe that it is genuine? Signs point to no, he reminds himself with a distasteful (and hidden) quirk of the lips.

The amusement of someone believing him must’ve shown in his eyes, for Thor’s lips sagged and his cheeks looked slightly more sunken. Loki pulled his face so it would be flat like a king from a worn deck of cards. But beneath, beneath he wore a frown, he kept it tight and prudent, as to not show; it hurt, though, to move his mouth in such a way under the muzzle.

Thor dragged him into the long hall, and it was all so very reminiscent, it was all so very grueling and so very painful; the emotion sat in his gut like coal, and he bit down on his tongue so he could—at least—bring any pain he had to feel upon himself. Loki pushed the thought that he already had out of his mind, shoved it down a cliff, and watched as it hit Thor. Thor flinched and stopped walking for a moment, staring at the throne, just staring.

He looked back at Loki and there was something in his eyes that Loki couldn’t recognize; he would say betrayal, but that is to be expected, and he has seen that look in Thor’s eyes so many times that it just doesn’t match. This was something new, something that rendered Thor silent, that made his eyes gray and his hair flat.

Thor turned back around and yanked on Loki’s cuffs again, but he made sure to walk slow enough to where they could walk side-by-side, to where they could walk as equals.

Odin was waiting with his face tight, and Frigga as well. No one spoke, no lips moved, but Frigga nodded and Thor removed the contraption from Loki’s face.

“Have you anything to say?” Odin boomed, face still flat, so flat. It rang in the halls and it rang throughout the fields and it rang, rang like liberty.

Loki shook his head and dropped to his knees and fluidly ignored how largely he wanted to grin when Frigga weakened, when she showed sympathy. Odin stood still and Thor merely let go of Loki’s hand, he let him fall.

There was a pang in his chest, but Loki passed it as satisfaction, as winning.

Odin stepped down and stared until Loki stood, weakly, and then he glared. His lips even curled into a sinister smile, into something sick and something twisted. “The magnitude of what you’ve done is so large, is so great, that you are lucky you are not dead.”

Loki nodded and Odin stepped closer, shoulders squared, eyes blown wide, and his mouth opened and it all went very slow, but then very fast, very fast, because Thor was in between the two and standing stock-still, eyes coarse. “It would be wisest,” Thor started, voice empty, like a chasm, “if we were to do this after all of us have had rest.”

Frigga nodded vigorously and took Odin’s arm in her small hands and tugged, so lightly, so kindly, that there was a sharp frown on Loki’s face {but only, only for a moment; he’s become a master at rectifying his mistakes}.

Then Thor turned his vacant gaze upon Loki and lifted his large palm; Loki took Thor’s hand in his and Thor nodded, and even his nod was hollow, was void of any emotion. So Loki would play the same, he would turn his own eyes into the depths of space.

It took Loki no time at all to figure out that they were going to his own bedchambers, and he wondered why he was not being brought to a dungeon, or at least a room that was heavily guarded. But Thor was tracing old footfalls from their childhood perfectly, as it had become routine; and then he turned and shoved Loki’s door open with one swoop of one hand. As soon as the door closed Thor snapped his hand out of Loki’s and slammed both of his palms on the wall.

His breathing was raggedy and it was like everything he had been holding in was flooding out, like the gates of hell and heaven had been opened at once, and good and evil both swamped earth again. “You have sacrificed my trust in you, Loki. You have sacrificed what we shared as brothers, what we shared as friends.”

“Sacrifices have to be made for ambitions, Thor. We both know I was not in my right mind.”

“Do not play that with me! I am not here—I did not save you to hear such things, I did not beg and plead to allow you to live to hear excuses, to hear such—such—shit, Loki!” Thor punched the wall and he sighed, a big, heaving sigh, and he made no effort to remove his fist. “I did not believe them, I did not believe them when they said you were never to be found. I did not believe them when they told me there was no saving you, Loki. Were they right? Is this even you, are you a mirage to me?”

Loki did not say anything because there was nothing to say.

“You have left a hole in me that cannot be filled, not even by you, not now, not ever, Loki.” Thor slowly removed his fist and turned and then Loki had to look, had to see Thor so close with so much emotion and it nearly made him react, nearly made his eyes widen. Thor’s eyes were rimmed with red and so blue, so, so blue that it reminded him of the eyes of those he had taken over, and he felt sick.

He realized that he cared about Thor, even after everything, and he collapsed; this, this is what he had been trying to avoid, letting himself realize. But he could only push it so far before he had to face what he was chasing. He could hear Thor saying things, asking if he was alright, or sick, but Loki did not answer, for he feared his own voice; would it speak the things he was trying to hide like his mind brought them to light?—he was unwilling to risk such travesties.

He could feel himself being lifted and then being placed on his bed, and then there was a dip, and he was sure Thor was sitting on the side.

“I wish to know why you hurt me, Loki,” he said, hardly above a whisper, as if it was not to be heard.

Stitches in Loki’s lips slid out and he could nearly feel them on his face, like snakes writhing free. “I wish to know why as well.” 

He pretended not to feel the hand that wrapped itself around his own.


End file.
